Good luck Burners! Pro tip: some camps are easier to get laid in than others.

Apologies in advance to anyone in the LGBT community who are celebrating their “pride” this weekend, because these suggestions come from a “hetero-normative” perspective. That still applies to 85% of Black Rock City, which is about as straight as San Francisco. Here are the latest stats:

Black Rock City’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Burners are 15.4% of the overall population, but that data alone cannot paint the wider panorama that is gender and sexual orientation on the Playa. Remember as you review the information that both gender and LGBT status is self identified, and that these questions were asked of all Burners, not just the subsection of those identifying as LGBT.

Of all females, 15.6% identified as LGBT, compared to 14.1% of males.

Of Burners who listed their gender as “fluid or neither,” 61.7% identified as LGBT.

Another Census question asked about sexual orientation, with options wider than just “gay, straight, or bi*.”

The largest percentages for the overall, male, and female samplings represented heterosexual Burners, however, for the group identifying as fluid/neither gender, only 17% of them chose heterosexual as their orientation. The overall data depicts the Playa as a largely hetero, but bicurious environment. The same was true for females Burners. However, the male population was largely hetero with the second-most reported orientation as gay, while the fluid/neither Burners were mostly bisexual and refused labels.

If you compare Black Rock City to these cities in the United States, it is most similar to the urban areas of San Francisco or Seattle, which is representative of where many Burners come from, and where the event was originally birthed.

[Update 7/1/14] Burner Kuja Duncan, a hater who thinks this is a shit article, has kindly contributed “How To Get Laid At Burning Man – The Non-Sexist Version”. Hope it helps!

“Stop gendering strangers. Stop assuming that the women you’re attracted to are attracted to people of your gender. Stop using words like ‘wussy’ to explain why you don’t fit into certain stereotypes. Treat the people you want to have sex with like human beings, cus they are. Find someone you are attracted to and would like to have sex with. Have a conversation with them. Decide if you still want to have sex with them. Ask them if they’d like to have sex with you, while being respectful. (Remember that whole ‘they’re a human being thing’?) If you do not get enthusiastic consent, find someone else.”

Still seems kind of sexist to me – some people are attracted to men! If anyone else has “non-sexist” and “non-genderist” tips, please share.

Just for the record, the HTGLABM2.0 did not come from BED. It’s not completely wrong, but it has a number of cringe inducing phrases. Also, it is very male oriented, and BED just doesn’t write that way.

BED is gender neutral and orientation neutral. The person who asks is not necessarily male. Whoever replies is not necessarily female. The parties involved need not be a couple. Frankly, my dears, we don’t give a damn.

BED’s message is about needing clarity and consent. One needs clarity about desires and boundaries. One needs consent for anything sexual to be legal and ethical.

The best current summary of what BED recommends is the sheet that was given out as part of the greeter materials at BM 2013:

yes, I can really see how the Bureau of Erotic Discourse’s advice to “move on if she’s not interested” is promoting rape culture and male aggressiveness. “No means no” is no longer politically correct, because it implies someone was thinking about putting their dick in someone who didn’t actually want that particular dick in them at that time. The person with the dick was clearly thinking like a rapist. If you even have to ask, that’s promoting rape culture. [/sarcasm]

I’m guessing you’re not one of the people who ever got laid at Burning Man.

Sexual rape is a violent act of an individual and an issue of consent. When a culture “rapes” its called Statism. Your efforts would be better utilized addressing the issue of consent, and a lack thereof, throughout our culture (Welcome to voluntarism)… Not chasing your tail, irked, over the recognition of the most common courtship pattern in the animal kingdom. Calling this an aggressor/submission relationship is just contributing to shithead culture. I’m sorry if I come off like an asshole. More importantly, this article could be shortened and target more than just dudes by changing it to: “Just ask.”

It’s amazing what some people are prepared to do to avoid the port-a-potties. Or not: last year one of our campmates heard a male couple noisily going for it in the portaloos near Distrikt. There’s something for everyone at Burning Man, and people get off on all kinds of shit…

I have found that page the single most helpful set of information explaining the sexual behavior of women. Again and again, and I often have to read it as a reminder. Most women rail against what is there, but only because they don’t want to see themselves that way. That does not change how well it predicts their behavior.

I do not follow all the advice for guys on the page, because a lot of it is seeking only one thing from women, as if the only purpose of having male friends is to watch sports. But the assessment of the patterns of behavior of women are a gold mine of explanations of otherwise truly bizarre behavior.

It is also more applicable to 20- and 30-somethings, both sexes, but as women get older they only become more complex with more factors to consider. Most of the factors on that page are still in play.

One of the most important concepts is being put on the Friends Ladder. Nothing wrong with being there as long as that suits your needs too. The seriously wrong thing is hoping to jump ladders, and letting the woman suggest that might happen. It won’t, and you have to let her know the limitations on HER when she puts you there.

The page also does not well define the problem of being moved from the Sex Ladder to the Friends Ladder. It happens, but makes it all the more important that she knows the consequences, because most women want to still be treated like a GF while no longer treating you as a BF. Of course, if you were only interested in the sex, then you have to immediately cut bait.

What is most interesting is women that YOU move from the Sex Ladder to the Friends Ladder. Did this with two DDG GF’s because they were too much a pain to be with. It is truly amazing how they are at a loss on how to deal with you when they are not riding the wave of your expectations to get in their pants. When I old the second one she was literally speechless. Being in charge with her sexuality was such a pattern for her life, she simply had no context on how to react. At least that is something most of us guys (who are not the dangerous type) know very well, and the Ladder page helps us see how to spot it early and adjust things accordingly.

I agree that it is a very useful analogy – I wish I’d had it 15 years ago. The key – relating it back to the OP of how to get laid – is thinking about when you first meet a woman, which ladder is she going to put you on? I think the advice in the original post is helpful to try to avoid the friends ladder, which men want – since there is only one ladder for us.

The analogy also seems to apply to FF relationships as well, and helps explain why many gorgeous lipsticks seem to be drawn to the outlaw “dyke on bike” type.

What it doesn’t help with much though is the idea of long-term relationships – how can you be friends with a sexual partner, day in, day out, for the rest of your life.
I remember one relationship I was in, co-habitating, where the girl started to develop a friendship with a guy. I trusted her, and she made it clear he was on the friends ladder. Of course, to him, there was only the one ladder, and one drunken night he convinced her to jump across to his side. Nobody won in that deal. In the future I would be very, very wary of a girlfriend wanting to spend a lot of time with a male “friend”, no matter how much I trusted her.

Pretending that men and women are the same, and think the same way, is responsible for a lot of suffering in today’s world. I would encourage anyone reading this comment to actually read through the material Nomad has linked to, before leaping in here with both barrels to blast us.

Way too much need do display cool (in a subculturally appropriate way) high energy behavior at Burning Man to get laid. Not comfortable for introverted people, and arguably against much of the hippie-ish rhetoric. I guess that’s just how humans are…